Greenwood Poet
by CheveronChick
Summary: Elladan challenges Legolas to preform in the Hall of Fire, and the woodland prince has never been one for backing down from challenges. (Lightly edited)


Legolas and his friends sat in a comfortably famileral huddle in the corner,not neglecting the rest of the room but certainly not going out of their way to interact with it.

They listened to the stories and the lingering ballads with polite toleration,paying more attention to the whispers of the trees, Elrond suspected, than the other elves and their performances. Ignoring the way the other elves clapped and sang along. Only clapping mildly at the conclusions but talking entiastiacly during the breaks.

Elrond was not the only one who noticed this.

"Do you not know any of our songs, Prince Legolas?" One of the younger Imladris residents asked, the one who had been trailing behind Legolas in hopes of picking up discarded archery talent since he arrived.

"I do," Legolas answered carefully, "I have heard them all several times, at the very least. I just do not necessarily know or agree with them enough to add my voice."

"What are the songs like where you are from?"

Elrond watched as Legolas leaned thoughtfully back in his chair, knowing he certainly got such verbal self restraint from Ferdan rather than Thranduil of Galion.

"To be honest, our favorites are of light subjects and happy times. We have no need for nostalgia driven glorified downfalls." He stopped himself, "We sing and speak of nothing that any here would care to listen to."

"The other Greenwood warriors wisely kept their mouths closed, trusting their princes silver plated tongue but exchanged charged and deeply meaningful looks with one another. Elrond could almost see their ghosts springing uninvited from the depth of their minds to waltz with the living around the room.

"And here I thought we were in the presence of one of Greenwoods most well liked poets." One of his twins said. An educated guess told him it was probably Elladan, but even Elrond could not tell from this distance and with so many flickering lights.

There was a small and expected "Oohhh." from the assembled onlookers close enough to hear the subtle but nonetheless present challenge.

Legolas narrowed his eyes at (probably) Elladan, and then glanced across the room to where his father sat much farther than most of his host, trading secrets and stories with Celebrian and Arwen.

But Thranduil had already strayed from his conversation in favor of the whispers from all things that grew.

One of the warriors laughed a little, "Do it, Legolas, show them."

Legolas didn't look away from his father, Elladan tapped him with a foot, "Yeah Legolas, show us."

Many of the elves turned their attention now to the visitors, always so curious. Wanting.

Elrond knew that this likely would not turn out the way most would expect, but he would readily admit he was curious.

Legolas had many talents,of that Elrond was more than certain, and it was not often he was allowed to witness such delights.

According to Arwen who Legolas either trusted enough, or was sufficiently worn down by assured him many times that the contents of his many hastily scrawled books were bursting with beauty and stolen moments of many forms. A special kind of personal magic.

But Elrond also knew that Legolas was brimming from toes to tip with his fathers biting attitude, just managed better and more sweetly coated, and so he sat back in anticipation. So did Glorfindel.

No other elf or visitor had spoken up with a wish to preform and so Elladan addressed the crowd, "Who would like to hear Prince Legolas speak to his name and legend?"

There was a general cheer from the Imladris residence that was echoed tenfold by the few Greenwood visitors and Arwen. Thranduil shrugged, raising his glass with incredible subtlety in a toast, Celebrian laughing with delight at whatever he said.

Legolas took a deep drink and set it on the ground and got to his feet with a leisurely spring, not bothering to stand on the stage. "As you wish, I will do my best to honor the hall, I'll try to stray from the lighter subjects from home."

He cleared his throat and stood tall:

Prophecies litter this world more abundantly than the bodies that haunt our dreams.

Pressing chased kisses to the already blessed with wild abandon while whispering of a strict indifference to the rest.

Abandoning them to be pulled beneath the waves of hate and embraced in the cold and unforgiving arms of chance.

Screamed and desperate pleas fall on deaf ears and blind eyes,

leaving them alone to struggle against the waves drowning them with impossible sincerity.

Laughing as they gaze brokenly from the bottom of unimaginable depths into the sky's as wings of superiority whisk the untroubled to higher ground.

The cracks within you deepen.

Leaving even more room for the realization of your inherited worthlessness to rattle around your bones and scramble your head.

Freely echoing in the empty spaces of your life where tragedy has burnt everything to a dark and lifeless cinder,

That drives a coldness that should be the death of you but still somehow isn't into the very fiber of your creation.

Stealing the best memories and days from you before you even knew you had them,

Teaching you how to say a rushed goodbye when you haven't even learned how to properly say hello.

Taking the best and leaving only the worst and having the reckless courage of those who have only even been whole to label it nothing but a petty weakness.

Lurking on the shores to assign the few who either manage to swam to the surface or learned to breathe beneath the waves with assumed savagery for surviving at all.

Blaming them for how they learned to create light in an artificial darkness born from the calculated worths assigned by those who cannot even count.

Looking in on the destruction of a people deemed lesser while blinking blankly with feigned and well practiced hauntingly hollow concern.

Standing as still as the tree's with their eyes closed to a sun that shines only for them claiming to understand the whispers in the darkness that swallows us.

Preaching strength but existing to us as a hardly noticeable wisp of companionship,

Nothing more than a fever dream whispering words we have so longed to hear while the jaws of fate wrap around us tighter than the walls we try to build to keep ourselves together.

Making a mockery of every inch of stitched hearts and bruised skin.

Unknowing what it feels like to both long for the rest that death presents to you in a cup sweeter than any nectar your lips have been worthy enough to touch,

And paralyzed with fear at the thought of adding more crushing darkness your now extinguished light used to fight against in all manners and strengths.

Ignoring the way we throw ourselves at the feet of death both wielding and fearing it.

Our throats stinging with the drink we use to both numb our raging pain and make us feel something other than the warm breath of lingering insanity.

Tricking ourselves that the demons are only shadows, and the sun is only behind a cloud.

They laugh behind pristine hands that have never been forced to take the life of a friend in an act of unexplainable love and anguish.

Foolishly thinking the way we laugh so often our voices go hoarse and play music so loud the earth might as well shake as anything but an act of empty desperation to fill a lingering silence.

Filling our buckets with whatever liquid we can find regardless of the hole in the bottom, clinging to the false hope of it bringing us life instead of another avenue towards death.

Pointedly ignoring the painful lessons that love teaches us with an impossibly cruel hand

Praying that the velvet feeling of the sun against my skin will linger even as the gnarled hands of a hopelessly cruel world continues to grasp relentlessly at me from the undergrowth.

Singing so loud we cannot hear how they misunderstand our choicelessness for stupidity and our all encompassing love as nothing more than another weakness to be ticked off a list to further prove our worthlessness.

I'd rather leave them to choke on force fed bottled up past travisties and victories as an excuse for their indifference more eternal than the sea,

As they sit within their self made halls of fire and discuss how beautiful it is to watch the world burn.

A silence so complete it had was a presence of its own stole the breath from the room; Legolas idly straightened his shirt before making his way to leave the room without a reaction, "I hope I defended my legend to your satisfaction, Elladan."

It was a good thing he hadn't wait for a response, because suddenly his son seemed unable to find his words.

**0o0o0o**

**Thanks for reading! **

**The poem is one I wrote myself, and I'm honestly really proud of it and I would love to hear your thoughts! **


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